Skip to main content
Enemy of the People
KEITH FLETT looks at a Labour turncoat behind the ratcheting up of measures to courtail the right to protest
KF

JOHN WOODCOCK was a failure as a right-wing Labour MP between 2010-2019, having come from a New Labour pedigree. 

In his final period as an MP he sat as an independent after allegations about his behaviour, never resolved, were made.

After losing his seat he was made a peer by Boris Johnson and his journey to the political right has continued since.

Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
Karl Marx 1
Features / 14 April 2025
14 April 2025
From bemoaning London’s ‘cockneys’ invading seaside towns to negotiating holiday rents, the founders of scientific socialism maintained a wry detachment from Victorian Easter customs while using the break for health and politics, writes KEITH FLETT
TURNING POINT: The anti-cuts plan put forward by Tony Benn (
Features / 31 March 2025
31 March 2025
Facing economic turmoil, Jim Callaghan’s government rejected Tony Benn’s alternative economic strategy in favour of cuts that paved the way for Thatcherism — and the cuts-loving Labour of the present era, writes KEITH FLETT
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Chancellor of the Excheq
Features / 17 March 2025
17 March 2025
Starmer’s slash-and-burn approach to disability benefits represents a fundamental break with Labour’s founding mission to challenge the idle rich rather than punish the vulnerable poor, argues KEITH FLETT
Leaders of the Labour Representation Committee in 1906. From
Features / 4 March 2025
4 March 2025
The formation of the Labour Representation Committee in 1900 marked the beginning of interconnected and contested strategies — parliamentary and industrial — seeking ways to advance working-class interests, writes KEITH FLETT